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Thursday, April 7, 2016

A F-ING COMMENTARY

I
have been doing a sort of word association during this challenge. I
am not sure what it says about me that there was only ONE word I
could think of for the letter 'F'.

I hate to break it to everyone but, not
only is the world on the verge of economic Armageddon, but the
language is losing one of its strongest members. That’s right. That
curse word to end all curses. The one word saved for the most heinous
of misdeeds. The one word that ignites the swiftest and cleanest
(read-soapiest) punishments of all time. Ladies and Gentlemen, I
present the misused and overused king of the expletives: may I
present the act, the curse, the word – F$%K.

I ate lunch with a friend today and in
the course of our lunch she used the word

f$%k and its more colorful derivative
‘f-ing’ at least twenty four times. She spoke of the ‘f-ing
bills’ – sounds like an awful lot of paper cuts to me – the
‘f-ing dog’ – either a behavior problem or quite possibly an
illegal act – and her ‘f-ing husband’ – not sure what the
problem is there, from all the erectile dysfunction advertisements on
television, I would think she would be celebrating. By the end of our
lunch I just wanted to scream

“F-it”! But I am more of the type
to swear in the key of ‘shit’ so I just shook my head and told
her she had broken one of my cardinal rules: you may use a foul word
up to three times after which you must find a different one. To be
unable to do so just shows an extreme lack of imagination, or
education.

For some reason, the word ‘f$%k’
has become a popular, everyday expletive and I am unsure why. It is
not a phrase that is pleasing to the ear like say, ‘damn it’. Now
there is a phrase that rolls nicely off the tongue where as ‘f$%k’
just spits itself out of the curser’s mouth with the same melodic
quality of a first year German student reciting her vocabulary list.
Nor is it really honest with its meaning. Take for instance, if you
say to someone ‘to hell with you’ you may rest assured that they
know exactly where you wish them to go. But, if you heatedly reply
‘F$%K you’ by definition wouldn’t the person assume that you
wished to have sexual relations with them? I have had this phrase
offered up to me on a few occasions and I can tell you quite
pointedly that I would not like to be ‘F-ed’ by the person
proposing this activity and I am relatively positive that they did
not want to actually be intimate with me.

It was not that long ago that the word
‘f$%k’ guaranteed a pretty stringent movie rating. The producers
would ponder long and hard over whether inclusion was worth the
alienation of much of the viewing audience. ‘F$%k’ is still not
allowed to be spoken over the airwaves of television or radio without
a hefty fine-unless you are cable. In fact, use of this particular
word by underage children is still considered grounds for oral
cleansing of the most anti-bacterial kind in many of the contiguous
forty-eight states, as well as Alaska and Hawaii. Now, some will make
the case for vocabulary stimulation among the young that attempt to
cover up their use of ‘f$%k’ with such delightful terms as
‘fudge’, ‘flip’, ‘fleck’, something about the 'front door' and (my personal favorite)
‘freaking’. But when it comes down to brass tacks, ‘f$%k’ has
out lived its shock value.

To illustrate my point, allow me to
share a true story. One night, while working in the emergency room of
a small inner city hospital, my partner and I were delighted (and by
delighted I mean annoyed) to be placed in the company of a large,
strung out inebriated professor of our favorite expletive. He wanted
to F$%K everything – the hospital, the gown, the ambulance that
brought him there. He propositioned me and my partner by the
endearing request to ‘get f-ed’. When it came time for
refreshment he demanded some F-ing water. Loudly. And repeatedly.
‘Give me some F-ing water’ was his credo, his mantra, his Hallelujah chorus.

My partner had been in the emergency
medicine field for a long, long time. It was three in the morning and
this guy was our only patient. There is nothing we wanted more than
to see him ambulate in a linear direction towards home or at least
pass out asleep. So as he shouted once more “give me some F-ing
water” my partner very calmly offered two large cups of water and
replied, “I’m sorry, we don’t have any F-ing water here. All we
have is regular water, will that do?”

That was the end of his F-ing tirade.
The bloom was off the rose. He had lost the will to 'F' anything. He
drank the water and went to sleep. The drunk on his ass junkie
goliath had been felled by the well slung word of a fifty year old,
one hundred twenty pound woman.

So, my point is this. When a middle
age woman can use what was once considered the verbiage of teamsters
and merchant marines the jig is up.

The word ‘f$%k’ has seen its glory day. Its
power to shock is gone. We have become desensitized to the meaning if
not the sound of those four letters being used to describe everything
from a bad piece of fruit to an expensive and well cared for car. It
is time for ‘f$%k’ to go the way of BetaMax tapes andMickey
Roarke (before The Wrestler). R.I.P. f-$-%-k.

It is time to find a new word.

(I actually wrote this in 2009, but technically it is Throwback Thursday, which I observe when convenient and I did have to do some editing to make this moderately
family friendly. Besides, this Alphabet Challenge is F-ing hard.)

10 comments:

haha! Admittedly, I have a bit of a potty mouth, and find that I often have to censor myself when I am in the presence of others.

you're doing great with the challenge! If you find yourself struggling with it, take a moment and write out the list of alphabet and write down your ideas for each letter and then write em up. It sounds like a lot of work, but it really does make it easier.

I love this! I share your dismay at the overuse of this perfectly good word. You are right that it has lost its ability to shock and thus it no longer serves any real purpose. Much better to use the much more expressive (in my opinion) hell, damn, and shit.

Blah Blah...

I'm a landlocked beach bum here on the Coast of Illinois. No...not that Coast, you know, the one with broad shoulders. The other Coast. The one with tug boats and Arches and a bunch of ancient dead guys buried in Mounds.
I am an inadvertent sailor-thanks to my husband and our 15 foot handmade wooden sloop...for which I made the sails!
I am here to promote the beach bum lifestyle, even when surrounded by corn and clay and I hope to point out the everyday weirdness that is easy to miss because once you start seeing hairnets, you will never stop seeing hairnets.

I have a palm tree necklace. It set us back a whole ten dollars, purchased on the boardwalk in Destin, Florida during the first trip ...

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